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Topic: The strange creatures we know as children (Read 244 times)

While being an uncle I've got to experience how kids behave on a one to one level, so have at least some understanding of how to look after them, I suppose that also comes from a mother who is so much of a baby boomer who melts every time she see's a baby.

For me its more that I see children in the same way I would chimps, watching their behavior and determining when the child ends and the adult begins, what lasts from the childhood stage and what gets left behind, reflecting on my own character as a kid and teen to today.

Going on the younger stage of childhood however, some things I find interesting, having babysat two boys and what that often intales.

1 - The way children if they get hurt, either by accident or purposely as fights often break out between them, when one child is hurt and starts to cry and wail, how when the pain has obviously well long past the point of it hurting anymore, some children will keep milking it, even causing themselves more discomfort from the wailing they force themselves into.

2 - The slow growth of empathy is interesting to watch, often it cane take years for a child to develop a sense of empathy for one another, how when something hurts, its not nice to cause they hurt to others in the same way. Often it seems kids learn Schadenfreude long before they develop empathy, just getting a joy out of pushing someone over or slapping them to get a reaction.

3 - How little inhibitions they have to the things they talk about and do, imagine is a board meeting have adults talking the way children do, talking about bums and peepees and poo, stripping off their clotsh and walking around naked, that drive kids have getting withheld by the development of modesty over time.

I've just had this on my mind today, probably after watching a david attenborough program on chimps the other day, when I think of the connection between primates and humans, I just look at human child behavior and see the same things in them.

I cannot recall the author of a piece I read long about the cognitive development of children, but with that in mind and if you think about it while the child grows, (hint- it's easier to see in grandkids because as parents we are trying too hard to simply do the right shit). I have and still watch as my 5yr old gk recognizes a small rock she considered her "friend" a year and a half ago, and she had returned to the rest of the rocks "his family", she will walk by, stop turn around, "oh, there is my friend" picks it up and will carry it with her for the day and return it. Of course dolls have personalities and they are growing more pronounced.

Much like human evolution of cognitive abilities we developed our religions along the same lines, first associating with the inanimate (animism), then attaching outside forces that can affect us (totenism) to accepting one or several of us has a better connection to those forces, (shamanism) and finally to the grand notion that we are special enough to have our own grand wizard who loves us and will do anything for us except actually do anything for us, and for that we make the excuse that we are simply not good enough to get what we asked for despite the constant reassurances....and for that we reach the pinnacle of human theology.....ho boy. But at least it gives a couple thousand a reasonable living by squabbling many of us out of our family savings to give them a nice limo.